The Viking carving in the village has been moved so it can be preserved and a new tree planted
The carving in the village, crafted from the remains of one of the old chestnut trees, has been relocated to another site.
This was a combined project by the ward councillors and Formby Parish Council.
The project will see the carving better preserved and mounted onto a plinth and placed outside the front of the library but, its permanent home has not yet been decided and hopefully planning permission can be sought for it to be eventually placed back into the village somewhere for everyone to enjoy.
In the village, the tree pit will be cleared and another London Plane tree planted in its place. London Planes are great for the environment as they actively absorb pollution. They grow quickly, and will help to retain the tree lined look of the village.
Now that the carving has been severed from its old roots, preservation will be much easier and it should last much longer than when it was in its original position.
After the tree was felled in March 2018 outside Waterfields on Chapel Lane in Formby Village, it was decided that it would be sculptured by Formby's brilliant sculptor Simon Archer.
Simon Archer holding his model size ship just before he started the sculpture in 2019.
You can see the tree stump that was left
after the felling.
The magnificent sculpture with sculptor Simon Archer after he had finished. You can watch the video of him sculpting the tree from
start to finish at the end of this story.
The sculpture is that of the front of a Viking Boat with the word Fornebei and some Vikings sculptured on the back. Formby is an old Viking village. The word Formby was originally spelt 'Fornebei' translated as 'village belonging to the family Forni' (Forni was a well-known Norse family name) and was built on the plains overlooking the beautiful Irish Sea Coast.
About 960 AD Vikings came to the west coast of Lancashire, first trading or raiding, then settling. Tradition has it that the Viking invaders failed to defeat the native Anglo-Saxons on the coast of Formby so they sailed inland, up the River Alt, and took them by surprise by attacking from the rear.
Four years ago in February 2019, Harington Conservative Councillors, (at the time), Cllr Dutton, CllrJamieson and Cllr Pitt secured funding to sculpt the tree in Formby Village which sadly was marked for felling.
Cllr Denise Dutton said: "It was heart breaking that any trees had to be felled in our village, but as a legacy, we have been able to organise the sculpting of the remaining stump into the front of a Viking Boat, representing Formby."
This is the tree that had to be cut down in Formby village to be sculptured into a Viking Boat
